Easter egg play

The Easter eggs have come out at our house (a week or 2 ago, I'm just slower in blogging about it).  I love the various ways activities that plastic Easter eggs can be used.  Here are a few things that we've tried out so far.

My first thought was a fine motor skill activity where Joel used Easter bunny tongs that I bought on clearance after Easter a few years ago for $.50!  

 They work much like scissors, except he got to pick up eggs and then place them in an egg carton (yes, I had a few of these that I'd saved to use for a theoretical project sometime).

Super cute boy having fun playing with the tongs and eggs.

I suggested to him to match the eggs as he placed them in the carton.  This added another element to our learning play.

We did some patterns.  I was thrilled because Joel was successful in completing the patterns I set up for him!

JOY!

Yes, my silly boy likes to make it difficult for me to get a good picture of him.  He loves looking at all the silly ones.  He left his eyes open until he thought I was taking the picture.  Notice the blur... he was also shaking his head.  I won't post all the attempts at a picture of his wonderful smiling face.

Here is the winner though! :-)  I love him!

I also created shakers out of the Easter eggs for Joel to match sounds.  I found a set of 6 different items that would fit inside the eggs.  I then created pairs (in non matching colors which was a challenge for this girl who organizes everything by color!).  So, Joel had to shake each egg to determine which 2 eggs had the same thing inside (without opening it...which was tough for a 3 year old).  Once he thought he had all the sounds paired, he got to open the eggs and find out what was inside.  He discovered paper clips, pom poms, beads, jingle bells, bouncy balls, and larger beads.  

Here you can see that Kirstin has joined Joel as our "neighborhood watch".  Since we love this big picture window in our house and spend tons of time looking out it, we've also added Easter egg window clings to it (thanks to both of the kids' Grandmas!).  

Have a blessed Holy Week and Happy Easter.

Finger Painting turned Monster Truck Race

Joel has been asking about what happens when two different colors are mixed. For example, "Mommy, what happens when yellow and blue mix?" The answer here is, of course, green.  After talking through this several times and covering all of the possibilities several times, one particular day while Kirstin was napping I thought it would be a good idea to allow him to explore some of this color mixing.  I'm all for making a mess for the sake of learning, but the timing has to be right (which is why it took a couple of days before we did the experiment).

Since I tend to save things that might work well for a project someday (much to the annoyance of my loving husband who would really prefer I throw it all away), I had a giant piece of paper that was packaging for something.  This giant piece of paper happened to have a shiny side, very much like the expensive finger paint paper, but this was free so much better! :-)

So I told Joel to come to the kitchen and roll up his pants legs and take off his shirt, at which point I had his attention because I'm normally telling him to put his shirt on! I laid the giant piece of paper on the floor.  I put squirts of finger paints into an old egg carton (another item of trash potential project material that I saved).  The egg carton worked really well to hold the perfect amount of finger paint and I could throw it away at the end to minimize clean up time (even though finger paints wash really easily!).

So after about 1 minute, Joel's excitement for painting was done.  However, I still had finger paints out that I wasn't going to throw away and this great giant piece of still mostly blank paper.  So, I had an idea....

I got a couple of Joel's hot wheels cars (with various sizes and textures of wheels) and began to drive them through the paint.  This is where Joel became engaged and excited about the painting again! :-)

I would paint sections of the paper and Joel would drive the cars through it.  He was so excited to be doing this.  It made really cool tracks all over the paper.

Joel said that he was having a monster truck race.  He even tore the paper a bit at one point when a car jumped through some paint.

The whole scene

The good news is that a baby wipe cleaned the finger paints that got on the bamboo floors and little boy very easily.  No damage done and we did color mixing via a monster truck race. :-)

Oh and this lovely giant piece of paper is now folded up in Joel's room because he also likes to save things.  However, I will likely be able to talk him into getting rid of it after a few weeks of it not being looked at again.  It's all about the process for me!

Windy Wednesday

I have several other posts planned, but thought I'd start with what we did today.  We have been spending much of our time at home because Kirstin has been napping for 2-3 hours at a time twice a day.  Today was a very windy day!  We could hear the wind.  We could see branches, leaves, trash, our downspout, and various other things being blown around outside.

Joel has a kite that he regularly asks if he can fly... in the snow, in the rain, in the backyard with a large tree that covers the entire yard.

Then, I got an idea... let's make a windsock!

 Joel was convinced when he saw the line up of supplies needed for this project: tape, stapler, scissors, hole puncher, yarn, crepe paper streamers, construction paper, and stickers.  Here's Joel decorating the body of the windsock with stickers (aka fine motor development, pre-writing skill).

Next cut enough crepe paper strips to line the bottom of the construction paper. 

(oh look, another skill is being practiced here)

Taping the streamers to the under side of the paper.

We needed 6 streamers for our windsock.  Joel is eager to use the stapler.

Roll the construction paper to form a cylinder and staple at both ends. Be careful not to staple a streamer. (I love the concentration on Joel's face.)

Using the hole puncher, punch 3 evenly spaced holes around the top (the opposite end of where the streamers are attached).  Joel was actually strong enough to do this himself (which he loved).

Cut 3 pieces of yarn and attach through the holes.  Then gather them all at the top and tie in a knot.  (Sorry the pic isn't rotated, I'll try to remember to do that better next time)

Check out that windsock in action!

Joel loved playing with his windsock that he made himself.

He wanted to do it while standing on the bench because he saw me do that to take his picture.

Exciting wind.

I love this one!  Joel's watching the trees and other things that are blowing around the yard.  I can see him processing what "wind" is and does.

After all the windsock fun was done, we went inside.  I found a couple books about a windy day (even though I couldn't find the one I was looking for that I know I have 2 copies of!).  We sat together and read books about wind.  

I love my job! Real learning happened today at our house; how about your's?. :-)  

Homemade Valentine's cards

We just aren't a card buying family.  When Jim and I were first married we looked at the 100s (maybe 1,000s) of cards we had received from the showers and wedding and realized that on average each card cost at least $2.  We could have eaten for months on that money.  :-)  I also like to be crafty.  I prefer crafts with a purpose or functionality.  Hence, if we send/give a card it is homemade!

The week before Valentine's day, Joel asked if he could do an art project.  I jumped on the opportunity because he rarely wants to be still long enough to create anything.  So, we made Valentine's cards for his grandparents (some of which I still need to mail).

We made 2 different types.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures of the process of making the "stain glass window" ones.  I started by folding a piece of colored paper in quarters to cut out a double heart that was connected at the top.  Next I cut out a piece of wax paper that would fit inside the double heart.  Then with watered down glue and a paint brush, I glued the wax paper heart inside the bottom of the colored hearts with the top heart lifted open.  Then, Joel placed squares of red, pink, and purple tissue paper on the wax paper.  We just painted the watery glue right on top of the tissue paper.  This is similar to how you would decoupage.  I found that the hearts looked best with the random placing of the tissue paper created by the 3-year-old!

Our supplies laid out on the table, with 2 of the stain glass hearts done.

After the wax paper was covered, we just closed the top heart down.

They look really neat when the sun shines through the window creating a stain glass effect.

The 2nd kind that we made used the inside hearts that we had cut out to make the 1st kind.  I crumbled tissue paper and glued it onto the heart creating a 3D heart.

This one I placed the tissue paper to create a design.

Here it is complete.

My sweet little Kirstin helped make this one.  She LOVED crumbling the tissue paper.  I just had to be fast to take it from her hand before it went into her mouth.  I think I prefer the random placement and mixed color hearts.

Both kinds of hearts and some left blank that could be colored on or finished later.

I like this project because both of my kids were able to participate in their own ways.  Joel loved picking up the pieces of tissue paper with various types of tongs.  He didn't know it, but that was a fine motor skill practice activity for him! :-)

We enjoyed talking about why we were making these during the process.  Joel was able to apply what we had read in a Valentine's book and make something special for people he loves.

Now I need to mail those last two envelopes.